16 ms·

Tesla: Recalled touchscreens were meant to only last 5-6 years

132 points by bluedino 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
u678u 6y ago
> Tesla will replace the VCM daughterboard with an "enhanced" eMMC controller. The recall is expected to begin March 31, and Tesla will notify customers of when to take their cars to a service center to have the work performed free of charge. Its not the touchscreen its the emmc. Yeah that sucks but its not like they're bricking old cars with expensive or unserviceable parts.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  Yes and the eMMC is integrated into the MCU and wasn't meant to be replaced requiring the whole unit to be dismantled at high cost. It could have been a cartridge or easily serviceable module.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    >It could have been a cartridge or easily serviceable module. Especially if they are arguing that it's normal for the memory to fail in 6 years. I can't imagine all of my center console buttons failing after six years and requiring a whole new center console to get up and running again.
    - Judgmentality 6y ago
      I'm really curious to see how Tesla's reputation will change over time. As they scale and have to provide cheaper cars (assuming they want to go after a larger market anyway, which they've publicly stated for over a decade), and have to deal with more customers who are less forgiving than early adopters, and also have to deal with legacy decisions from their early years of cars failing and all of the weird service issues and NDAs and bricking cars that are resold and have to make good on their FSD promise and (I could go on - my point is not to hate Tesla but merely to point out they are still in the early stages of being an adored consumer company because most consumers currently cannot afford them) well, I think Tesla is going to earn a similar reputation as other car manufacturers as time goes on. Yeah, I know Tesla sells things besides cars. But I think their reputation will be based on things they sell to the public, and I think most people will judge them on their cars.
      - cptskippy 6y ago
        It will be interesting, they're having to learn hard lessons about support and customer service that other car companies learned half a century ago. The question is can they learn those lessons faster than the other car companies can learn to build comparable EVs. I would say they're going to have a hard time of it.
      - devlopr 6y ago
        It will be an era of lawsuits and lower share prices. The brand will survive.
      - curryst 6y ago
        > have to deal with legacy decisions from their early years of cars failing and all of the weird service issues and NDAs and bricking cars that are resold and have to make good on their FSD promise I honestly think they were hoping to make that up in volume. As it gets cheaper to make cars at scale, some portion of the savings goes to fixing up the issues with the cars they already shipped. They haven't been able to scale their pipeline, though. > I think Tesla is going to earn a similar reputation as other car manufacturers as time goes on. Long term, I don't think it's going to go well. "Move fast and break things" is a bad principle to apply to a car. I can use DDG or Bing if Google doesn't work, but I can't summon a Kia when my Tesla won't start. I don't think they can use that velocity to create features consumers want enough to deal with the instability. They might strike gold elsewhere though where the instability is less of an issue. It might be okay for self-driving semis to break down, if they're cheap enough that you can afford extras to use when some break.
    - toast0 6y ago
      If it's expected to fail around 6 years, it should be in the scheduled maintenance list, too.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
themoose8 6y ago
This headline is sensationalised, it could have been an oversight, not necessarily an intentional decision.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Not true. If you dig deeper, you’ll find Tesla was originally charging Model S and X owners $2500 to replace failed MCUs. Only under regulator scrutiny did they concede and issue a recall. Owning both a Model S and X, I’ve seen Tesla first hand attempt to evade covering warranty work on these models. Friendly reminder to opt out of arbitration when you buy your Tesla (when the VIN is issued).
  - sanj 6y ago
    How?
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8vxnz0/psa_for_us_buyers_arbitration_clause/ https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8vxnz0/psa_for...
      - rhacker 6y ago
        I read a bit of that. It seems really weird that these letters are sent to Tesla. So if some lawsuit WAS going to happen, Tesla can say they never got the letter. There's something really fishy about Tesla.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Certified mail return receipt. https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Certified-Mail https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Certified-Mail
      - effingwewt 6y ago
        Just wanted to say thanks for using the old.reddit link.
Tsiklon 6y ago
I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of >20 years. My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user, when these inevitably fail (as in this case) - what can the owner do when the parts are no longer available, or if the manufacturer is out of business? Mechanically the car may be sound - but if the system responsible for the interaction between the vehicle and the owner is borked and impossible to replace does that mean the car is a complete write off? I think back to some of the beaters my friends owned when they started driving, with broken HVAC switch gear, burned out audio head unit wiring harness, etc... while mechanically sound (enough to be road legal...), issues like this didn't hinder or prevent driving the car, and they continued in service for years in this state.
- hshshs2 6y ago
  the average person does not think a car will last over 20 years... on average people keep theirs for closer to 10... what are you basing that idea off of?
  - Tagbert 6y ago
    If the average person expect their car to least 10 years then a lot of people are expecting their car to last more than 10 years. Actual average age of cars on the road in the US is around 12 years. If you are not in the rust belts, it is common to still see cars from the nineties. They are usually driven by people who could not afford a newer car or could not afford major expensive or hard to get parts.
    - curryst 6y ago
      > If the average person expect their car to least 10 years then a lot of people are expecting their car to last more than 10 years. Right, but how many of the people that expect their car to last more than 10 years are buying new cars? The signalling I get from Tesla is that they don't care a whole lot about the used market (as evidenced by this issue). I think consumers don't realize how much they actually care about the used market. If you buy a $60,000 car that you sell for $20,000 when you're done, you paid $40,000 to drive the car. If you buy a $60,000 car that you can't resell because it's dead or too risky for buyers, you paid $60,000 to drive the car. Unfortunately, that cost doesn't manifest until years later. Roughly now, based on how long Teslas have been around and their expected lifetime number. I would not be surprised to see Tesla start losing orders if they can't support the used market.
killjoywashere 6y ago
I have an original retina MacBook Pro, ordered the day they were announced, before the presentation was over, in fact. Works fine. I have ThinkPads that are even older. Tesla was cutting corners, no doubt about it. As the regulatory burden increases, they'll adjust. It is an interesting idea though, a first-order example of regulation moving a market.
- TheRealSteel 6y ago
  I agree they were cutting corners, but comparing it to a laptop isn't that useful because as far as I understand it the main issue with screens in cars is the high temperatures they can be regularly exposed to.
  - philjohn 6y ago
    It's a fair comparison when you take into account what they are designed for - a laptop isn't designed to be used in a place where it can get to the temperature that can kill. A screen in a car needs to be designed to take into account the environment, and it looks like in this case it wasn't.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
      That isn't the issue, the issue is the limited life cycles of flash memory, 3000 to 5000 cycles. The article says that in paragraph four: The government agency identified the source of the problem as the touchscreen's NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and its integrated 8GB eMMC flash memory chip. When the chip reaches "lifetime wear," it can no longer maintain file-system integrity, causing failure of touchscreen functions, according to the NHTSA
lemming 6y ago
The revamped Model S and Model X still have big central touchscreens (now in a landscape orientation, rather than the previous portrait-oriented screen), but Tesla went even further by eliminating the turn-signal and gear-selector stalks. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the car will simply "guess" which way the driver wants to go based on sensor data and navigation maps. Tesla is expected to include backup controls as well, leaving drivers to use the touchscreen for selecting drive, and steering-wheel controls for turn signals. That is terrifying, and this sort of thing is why I don't seriously consider Teslas now I'm looking to buy an EV.
- m463 6y ago
  It really is annoying that Tesla requires you to make these compromises. Before I believed all model 3 cars should have at least the option of a dashboard to show status in the direction you are looking. I thought the Model S/X would be higher cost so they wouldn't try to cost-reduce everything like the model 3.
- totalZero 6y ago
  Signals are most important when the intention they communicate is counterintuitive. Guessing is a poor approach.
- danmur 6y ago
  I have no idea how it could possibly guess, the whole point of turn signals is you use them before any other action.
  - ac29 6y ago
    On top of that, at least where I live, you must use your turn signal to indicate changing lanes at least 100 feet before making the change. The car cant possibly know what I'm thinking.
  - cynix 6y ago
    The “guess” part is about forward or reverse. Turn signals are still manually activated.
- 6y ago
m463 6y ago
Lot of misinformation here. The touchscreen is not a problem. They did have a screen yellowing issue due to not enough UV applied to cure a screen adhesive. The real problem is the EMMC wearing out. And the root cause is that they're logging so much data to it continuously. They could have chosen to log less data.
- Saris 6y ago
  I'm amazed that an expensive car used eMMC in the first place. But then again car touchscreens are some of the slowest pieces of tech around it seems.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  Or made the EMMC storage user-accessible and replaceable the same way that the LTE radio is (it’s hidden behind an easily removed panel behind/under the main display)
- hnburnsy 6y ago
  In addition Tesla used a cheap eMMC with a limited number of write cycles. Tesla did reduce the excessive logging and even implemented a notification when the car suspects it is failing. I think they even extended the warranty, but of course reducing the logging will push some failures outside of the warranty period. This recall thankfully fixes this problem permanently for those who could be affected.
  - m463 6y ago
    That would have been fine - if tesla just didn't write so much data. I think they're very attached to the data.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rektide 6y ago
With Ford adopting Android Auto & many others doing the same, I wonder how many cars are built to last more than 5 years before they become insecure digital trash buckets.
drivingmenuts 6y ago
How’s that missing turn signal stalk supposed to work when you’re supposed to signal turn well in advance of actually turning? If you’re using GPS, then it might be enough but people miss turns all the time, change their minds due to traffic conditions and the information in GPS systems is not always correct.
- cynix 6y ago
  It’s the forward/reverse gear selection that’s missing. There appear to be physical controls for turn signals.
  - drivingmenuts 6y ago
    FTA: The revamped Model S and Model X still have big central touchscreens (now in a landscape orientation, rather than the previous portrait-oriented screen), but Tesla went even further by eliminating the turn-signal and gear-selector stalks. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the car will simply "guess" which way the driver wants to go based on sensor data and navigation maps. Tesla is expected to include backup controls as well, leaving drivers to use the touchscreen for selecting drive, and steering-wheel controls for turn signals. Just does not sound like a good idea at all.
deathanatos 6y ago
> but Tesla went even further by eliminating the turn-signal and gear-selector stalks. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the car will simply "guess" which way the driver wants to go based on sensor data and navigation maps. That's impossible. Maybe an AI could guess left/right turns, but signals are also used to signal merges; if I need or want to merge, how could the car possibly know, and know which direction? In a normal vehicle being operated responsibly, the only indication that a merge is going to occur is the driver engaging the signal. (Though I admit, many a driver doesn't start to signal their merge until their car has half left the lane. A signal then is often useless: I already know they're merging because the car is drifting recklessly into another lane.)
- alphabettsy 6y ago
  I’m not even sure about the turns. If I suddenly decide I want to stop at a shop on my route home where I’ve never gone the car wouldn’t begin to signal until I’ve slowed, which is better than nothing.
  - OldHand2018 6y ago
    Read it again. You have to tell Tesla where you are going or it won’t go there. This is just the next step in their autonomous driving plan.
    - doubleunplussed 6y ago
      Unless the car is intended to be completely autonomous, it presumably supports non-autonomous driving, and therefore should have a freaking physical turn signal control. If it's intended to be totally autonomous, why does it even have a steering wheel?
    - alphabettsy 6y ago
      I get it, but when you’re not driving autonomously it would be nice to have basic driving controls.
- m463 6y ago
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Screens are so cheap, I imagine replacing them every 5 years isn’t that big a deal. Our van glove compartment repair was quoted at $300 for a broken plastic latch...
atlgator 6y ago
Gruber Motor Company did a video on the Tegra repair 10 months ago. Not sure how much it costs. https://youtu.be/JHFts76UwgQ https://youtu.be/JHFts76UwgQ
souprock 6y ago
There are plenty of people who drive classic cars built from 1950 to 1975. Some people drive even older cars. I once saw a Ford T stopped at a 7-11 to buy gasoline. Will that Tesla S be the same in 2045 to 2090, or even in 2120? It's looking like the answer is no. The only ones left will be mounted on platforms in car museums. There will not be auto shows featuring real Tesla cars, because the electronics will be dead and impossible to fix. No reasonable part replacement will be possible because of digital signatures. We'll see some car bodies that get hollowed out and then draped over the innards of newer cars. Somebody already got an unsupported Tesla S running again by installing a gasoline engine, even cutting through the floor to install a transmission tunnel.
- perilunar 6y ago
  > No reasonable part replacement will be possible because of digital signatures. Bah. Just strip out the electronics and replace them with something newer and more open. Keep the body and the motors, replace the batteries and the computers.
FounderBurr 6y ago
So “buying” A Tesla is basically just signing up for a $20,000/yr car subscription.
robomartin 6y ago
If you are interested in the potential tragedy of modern electronics longevity, look-up “tin whiskers”. My prediction is that the RoHS regulations that brought us lead-free solder will go down in history as the cause of massive environmental contamination around the world. In other words, exactly opposite what they thought they would achieve.
cycomanic 6y ago
I recently talked about this with a friend who is an engineer at a large traditional car manufacturer (working on sensor technology for self driving). It came up out of a completely different discussion (I had not heard about touch screen failures). He said that Tesla is well known for using general consumer grade parts (he mentioned the touchscreen as an example) instead of automotive parts (which have typically much longer expected livetimes). That allows the to push the price down but also to iterate faster. The worrying bit is not really that Tesla does it, but that the mandated strategy at that manufacturer is to only compare themselves with Tesla (all others don't count), so I think we will see a drive to lower quality from all manufacturers to emulate tesla. This is a well know premium manufacturer.
kureikain 6y ago
Tesla is a really nice car to drive around. But it's a good candidate for someone looks for a reliable car. Someone hit me when the car on auto pilot. My hands are on the wheel but it's really hard for Tesla to take back control. The car was shaking and I have to apply a force to the drive wheel to force it went straight. Tesla as a car feel very fraigle :-(. but on the other hand, driving it is really fun.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gandalfian 6y ago
I suspect many of the people who buy Tesla's are the sort of people who trade in their cars for a new one every 3-5 years. So really it's the second hand buyers who get shafted with no warranty protection at all.

132 points by bluedino 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

> Tesla will replace the VCM daughterboard with an "enhanced" eMMC controller. The recall is expected to begin March 31, and Tesla will notify customers of when to take their cars to a service center to have the work performed free of charge. Its not the touchscreen its the emmc. Yeah that sucks but its not like they're bricking old cars with expensive or unserviceable parts.

cptskippy 6y ago
Yes and the eMMC is integrated into the MCU and wasn't meant to be replaced requiring the whole unit to be dismantled at high cost. It could have been a cartridge or easily serviceable module.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  >It could have been a cartridge or easily serviceable module. Especially if they are arguing that it's normal for the memory to fail in 6 years. I can't imagine all of my center console buttons failing after six years and requiring a whole new center console to get up and running again.
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    I'm really curious to see how Tesla's reputation will change over time. As they scale and have to provide cheaper cars (assuming they want to go after a larger market anyway, which they've publicly stated for over a decade), and have to deal with more customers who are less forgiving than early adopters, and also have to deal with legacy decisions from their early years of cars failing and all of the weird service issues and NDAs and bricking cars that are resold and have to make good on their FSD promise and (I could go on - my point is not to hate Tesla but merely to point out they are still in the early stages of being an adored consumer company because most consumers currently cannot afford them) well, I think Tesla is going to earn a similar reputation as other car manufacturers as time goes on. Yeah, I know Tesla sells things besides cars. But I think their reputation will be based on things they sell to the public, and I think most people will judge them on their cars.
    - cptskippy 6y ago
      It will be interesting, they're having to learn hard lessons about support and customer service that other car companies learned half a century ago. The question is can they learn those lessons faster than the other car companies can learn to build comparable EVs. I would say they're going to have a hard time of it.
    - devlopr 6y ago
      It will be an era of lawsuits and lower share prices. The brand will survive.
    - curryst 6y ago
      > have to deal with legacy decisions from their early years of cars failing and all of the weird service issues and NDAs and bricking cars that are resold and have to make good on their FSD promise I honestly think they were hoping to make that up in volume. As it gets cheaper to make cars at scale, some portion of the savings goes to fixing up the issues with the cars they already shipped. They haven't been able to scale their pipeline, though. > I think Tesla is going to earn a similar reputation as other car manufacturers as time goes on. Long term, I don't think it's going to go well. "Move fast and break things" is a bad principle to apply to a car. I can use DDG or Bing if Google doesn't work, but I can't summon a Kia when my Tesla won't start. I don't think they can use that velocity to create features consumers want enough to deal with the instability. They might strike gold elsewhere though where the instability is less of an issue. It might be okay for self-driving semis to break down, if they're cheap enough that you can afford extras to use when some break.
  - toast0 6y ago
    If it's expected to fail around 6 years, it should be in the scheduled maintenance list, too.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

themoose8 6y ago

This headline is sensationalised, it could have been an oversight, not necessarily an intentional decision.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Not true. If you dig deeper, you’ll find Tesla was originally charging Model S and X owners $2500 to replace failed MCUs. Only under regulator scrutiny did they concede and issue a recall. Owning both a Model S and X, I’ve seen Tesla first hand attempt to evade covering warranty work on these models. Friendly reminder to opt out of arbitration when you buy your Tesla (when the VIN is issued).
- sanj 6y ago
  How?
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8vxnz0/psa_for_us_buyers_arbitration_clause/ https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8vxnz0/psa_for...
    - rhacker 6y ago
      I read a bit of that. It seems really weird that these letters are sent to Tesla. So if some lawsuit WAS going to happen, Tesla can say they never got the letter. There's something really fishy about Tesla.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Certified mail return receipt. https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Certified-Mail https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Certified-Mail
    - effingwewt 6y ago
      Just wanted to say thanks for using the old.reddit link.

Tsiklon 6y ago

I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of >20 years. My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user, when these inevitably fail (as in this case) - what can the owner do when the parts are no longer available, or if the manufacturer is out of business? Mechanically the car may be sound - but if the system responsible for the interaction between the vehicle and the owner is borked and impossible to replace does that mean the car is a complete write off? I think back to some of the beaters my friends owned when they started driving, with broken HVAC switch gear, burned out audio head unit wiring harness, etc... while mechanically sound (enough to be road legal...), issues like this didn't hinder or prevent driving the car, and they continued in service for years in this state.

hshshs2 6y ago
the average person does not think a car will last over 20 years... on average people keep theirs for closer to 10... what are you basing that idea off of?
- Tagbert 6y ago
  If the average person expect their car to least 10 years then a lot of people are expecting their car to last more than 10 years. Actual average age of cars on the road in the US is around 12 years. If you are not in the rust belts, it is common to still see cars from the nineties. They are usually driven by people who could not afford a newer car or could not afford major expensive or hard to get parts.
  - curryst 6y ago
    > If the average person expect their car to least 10 years then a lot of people are expecting their car to last more than 10 years. Right, but how many of the people that expect their car to last more than 10 years are buying new cars? The signalling I get from Tesla is that they don't care a whole lot about the used market (as evidenced by this issue). I think consumers don't realize how much they actually care about the used market. If you buy a $60,000 car that you sell for $20,000 when you're done, you paid $40,000 to drive the car. If you buy a $60,000 car that you can't resell because it's dead or too risky for buyers, you paid $60,000 to drive the car. Unfortunately, that cost doesn't manifest until years later. Roughly now, based on how long Teslas have been around and their expected lifetime number. I would not be surprised to see Tesla start losing orders if they can't support the used market.

killjoywashere 6y ago

I have an original retina MacBook Pro, ordered the day they were announced, before the presentation was over, in fact. Works fine. I have ThinkPads that are even older. Tesla was cutting corners, no doubt about it. As the regulatory burden increases, they'll adjust. It is an interesting idea though, a first-order example of regulation moving a market.

TheRealSteel 6y ago
I agree they were cutting corners, but comparing it to a laptop isn't that useful because as far as I understand it the main issue with screens in cars is the high temperatures they can be regularly exposed to.
- philjohn 6y ago
  It's a fair comparison when you take into account what they are designed for - a laptop isn't designed to be used in a place where it can get to the temperature that can kill. A screen in a car needs to be designed to take into account the environment, and it looks like in this case it wasn't.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    That isn't the issue, the issue is the limited life cycles of flash memory, 3000 to 5000 cycles. The article says that in paragraph four: The government agency identified the source of the problem as the touchscreen's NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and its integrated 8GB eMMC flash memory chip. When the chip reaches "lifetime wear," it can no longer maintain file-system integrity, causing failure of touchscreen functions, according to the NHTSA

lemming 6y ago

The revamped Model S and Model X still have big central touchscreens (now in a landscape orientation, rather than the previous portrait-oriented screen), but Tesla went even further by eliminating the turn-signal and gear-selector stalks. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the car will simply "guess" which way the driver wants to go based on sensor data and navigation maps. Tesla is expected to include backup controls as well, leaving drivers to use the touchscreen for selecting drive, and steering-wheel controls for turn signals. That is terrifying, and this sort of thing is why I don't seriously consider Teslas now I'm looking to buy an EV.

m463 6y ago
It really is annoying that Tesla requires you to make these compromises. Before I believed all model 3 cars should have at least the option of a dashboard to show status in the direction you are looking. I thought the Model S/X would be higher cost so they wouldn't try to cost-reduce everything like the model 3.
totalZero 6y ago
Signals are most important when the intention they communicate is counterintuitive. Guessing is a poor approach.
danmur 6y ago
I have no idea how it could possibly guess, the whole point of turn signals is you use them before any other action.
- ac29 6y ago
  On top of that, at least where I live, you must use your turn signal to indicate changing lanes at least 100 feet before making the change. The car cant possibly know what I'm thinking.
- cynix 6y ago
  The “guess” part is about forward or reverse. Turn signals are still manually activated.
6y ago

m463 6y ago

Lot of misinformation here. The touchscreen is not a problem. They did have a screen yellowing issue due to not enough UV applied to cure a screen adhesive. The real problem is the EMMC wearing out. And the root cause is that they're logging so much data to it continuously. They could have chosen to log less data.

Saris 6y ago
I'm amazed that an expensive car used eMMC in the first place. But then again car touchscreens are some of the slowest pieces of tech around it seems.
DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
Or made the EMMC storage user-accessible and replaceable the same way that the LTE radio is (it’s hidden behind an easily removed panel behind/under the main display)
hnburnsy 6y ago
In addition Tesla used a cheap eMMC with a limited number of write cycles. Tesla did reduce the excessive logging and even implemented a notification when the car suspects it is failing. I think they even extended the warranty, but of course reducing the logging will push some failures outside of the warranty period. This recall thankfully fixes this problem permanently for those who could be affected.
- m463 6y ago
  That would have been fine - if tesla just didn't write so much data. I think they're very attached to the data.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rektide 6y ago

With Ford adopting Android Auto & many others doing the same, I wonder how many cars are built to last more than 5 years before they become insecure digital trash buckets.

drivingmenuts 6y ago

How’s that missing turn signal stalk supposed to work when you’re supposed to signal turn well in advance of actually turning? If you’re using GPS, then it might be enough but people miss turns all the time, change their minds due to traffic conditions and the information in GPS systems is not always correct.

cynix 6y ago
It’s the forward/reverse gear selection that’s missing. There appear to be physical controls for turn signals.
- drivingmenuts 6y ago
  FTA: The revamped Model S and Model X still have big central touchscreens (now in a landscape orientation, rather than the previous portrait-oriented screen), but Tesla went even further by eliminating the turn-signal and gear-selector stalks. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the car will simply "guess" which way the driver wants to go based on sensor data and navigation maps. Tesla is expected to include backup controls as well, leaving drivers to use the touchscreen for selecting drive, and steering-wheel controls for turn signals. Just does not sound like a good idea at all.

deathanatos 6y ago

> but Tesla went even further by eliminating the turn-signal and gear-selector stalks. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the car will simply "guess" which way the driver wants to go based on sensor data and navigation maps. That's impossible. Maybe an AI could guess left/right turns, but signals are also used to signal merges; if I need or want to merge, how could the car possibly know, and know which direction? In a normal vehicle being operated responsibly, the only indication that a merge is going to occur is the driver engaging the signal. (Though I admit, many a driver doesn't start to signal their merge until their car has half left the lane. A signal then is often useless: I already know they're merging because the car is drifting recklessly into another lane.)

alphabettsy 6y ago
I’m not even sure about the turns. If I suddenly decide I want to stop at a shop on my route home where I’ve never gone the car wouldn’t begin to signal until I’ve slowed, which is better than nothing.
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  Read it again. You have to tell Tesla where you are going or it won’t go there. This is just the next step in their autonomous driving plan.
  - doubleunplussed 6y ago
    Unless the car is intended to be completely autonomous, it presumably supports non-autonomous driving, and therefore should have a freaking physical turn signal control. If it's intended to be totally autonomous, why does it even have a steering wheel?
  - alphabettsy 6y ago
    I get it, but when you’re not driving autonomously it would be nice to have basic driving controls.
m463 6y ago

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Screens are so cheap, I imagine replacing them every 5 years isn’t that big a deal. Our van glove compartment repair was quoted at $300 for a broken plastic latch...

atlgator 6y ago

Gruber Motor Company did a video on the Tegra repair 10 months ago. Not sure how much it costs. https://youtu.be/JHFts76UwgQ https://youtu.be/JHFts76UwgQ

souprock 6y ago

There are plenty of people who drive classic cars built from 1950 to 1975. Some people drive even older cars. I once saw a Ford T stopped at a 7-11 to buy gasoline. Will that Tesla S be the same in 2045 to 2090, or even in 2120? It's looking like the answer is no. The only ones left will be mounted on platforms in car museums. There will not be auto shows featuring real Tesla cars, because the electronics will be dead and impossible to fix. No reasonable part replacement will be possible because of digital signatures. We'll see some car bodies that get hollowed out and then draped over the innards of newer cars. Somebody already got an unsupported Tesla S running again by installing a gasoline engine, even cutting through the floor to install a transmission tunnel.

perilunar 6y ago
> No reasonable part replacement will be possible because of digital signatures. Bah. Just strip out the electronics and replace them with something newer and more open. Keep the body and the motors, replace the batteries and the computers.

FounderBurr 6y ago

So “buying” A Tesla is basically just signing up for a $20,000/yr car subscription.

robomartin 6y ago

If you are interested in the potential tragedy of modern electronics longevity, look-up “tin whiskers”. My prediction is that the RoHS regulations that brought us lead-free solder will go down in history as the cause of massive environmental contamination around the world. In other words, exactly opposite what they thought they would achieve.

cycomanic 6y ago

I recently talked about this with a friend who is an engineer at a large traditional car manufacturer (working on sensor technology for self driving). It came up out of a completely different discussion (I had not heard about touch screen failures). He said that Tesla is well known for using general consumer grade parts (he mentioned the touchscreen as an example) instead of automotive parts (which have typically much longer expected livetimes). That allows the to push the price down but also to iterate faster. The worrying bit is not really that Tesla does it, but that the mandated strategy at that manufacturer is to only compare themselves with Tesla (all others don't count), so I think we will see a drive to lower quality from all manufacturers to emulate tesla. This is a well know premium manufacturer.

kureikain 6y ago

Tesla is a really nice car to drive around. But it's a good candidate for someone looks for a reliable car. Someone hit me when the car on auto pilot. My hands are on the wheel but it's really hard for Tesla to take back control. The car was shaking and I have to apply a force to the drive wheel to force it went straight. Tesla as a car feel very fraigle :-(. but on the other hand, driving it is really fun.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gandalfian 6y ago

I suspect many of the people who buy Tesla's are the sort of people who trade in their cars for a new one every 3-5 years. So really it's the second hand buyers who get shafted with no warranty protection at all.